Climate action in the Border region.

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Mock wedding – please write a follow up letter to Sussan Ley

Thank you to everyone who attended our wonderful wedding! Soon we’ll be posting photos and links, but in the mean time we urge you to send a message to Sussan Ley using the template below and modifying as you wish. A printable (PDF) version of the letter can be accessed here. If preferred you can copy and paste this information and email to: farrer@aph.gov.au

The Hon Sussan Ley MP

Member for Farrer

Minister for Health, Minister for Aged Care, Minister for Sport

PO Box 672 Albury NSW 2640

20 May 2016

Dear Ms Ley,

As Minister for Health you would understand the vital importance of basing diagnoses and treatments on scientifically gathered medical evidence. For example, when looking at the best way to diagnose and treat lung cancer you would rely heavily on the advice of oncologists. We assume you would not take the advice (or donations) of tobacco companies that have a vested interest in selling tobacco, the main cause of lung cancer.

I therefore respectfully ask that when it comes to diagnosing and treating an overheating planet, you and your colleagues rely on the advice of scientists who have trained and worked in the area for much of their career. I would hope you would not take the advice (or donations) of corporations which sell the fossil fuels known to cause of the very problem it is your responsibility to help cure.

The fossil fuel industry has handed $3.7 million to the major parties since the last election. Moreover, your Government will give them $7.7 billion in subsidies in the coming financial year. The European Union is already phasing out coal subsidies, with all coal subsidies to be banned by 2018. But when it’s been suggested that Australia should follow the EU’s lead, Australian MPs have diverted the conversation.

Three quarters of Australians support ending these subsidies (Poll conducted by Essential Media, released 27 November 2015). We must stop the flow of money that is propping up the fossil fuel industry.

The scientific community is agreed on the diagnosis of climate change, the appalling prognosis if rapid appropriate intervention is not carried out and the main treatment of ceasing the use of the toxic fossil fuels we have become so addicted to.

The people of Farrer have put you in the position of being their ‘doctor’ i.e. acting in their best interests on the best advice available and not being swayed by the advice or donations of others who seek financial gain with no thought for the long term future. It is time for policy and actions to be serious, proportionate and effective. We ask you to carry out your duty with regard to your conscience and what is right.

We also ask you to sign the Pollution Free Politics pledge. The pledge states that you ‘personally support, and call on all politicians and parties to support a ban on donations from fossil fuel companies, and a ban on subsidies to fossil fuel companies’. For more visit pollutionfreepolitics.com